arts analysis

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ARTS 1A: Document Analysis 6

Read the following primary source document, an excerpt from the transcript of a television interview with Maya Lin conducted by journalist Bill Moyers. In your notebook, address the questions which follow. Excerpts from Bill Moyers’s interview with Maya Lin for Public Affairs Television, 2003 I think what my work is about is appreciating and being respectful of nature, which again ties in to an inherent love for the natural environment. I will go to sites that are just so beautiful beyond compare. I know that nothing I do can ever be better than what this planet, what this land, what the natural resources, what this place is—whether I'm making art that deals with this, taking a closer look at the land, paying attention to it, appreciating it, being respectful of it . . . . . . On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial: I had a simple impulse to cut into the earth. I imagine taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up and the initial violence and pain that in time would heal. The grass would grow back, but the initial cut would remain a pure, flat surface in the earth with a polished mirrored surfaced, much like the surface on a geode when you cut it and polish the edge. The need for the names to be on the memorial would become the memorial. There was no need to embellish the design further. The people and their names would allow everyone to respond and remember. It would be an interface between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond. . . . I had huge debates with the architect of record that was selected to work with me to realize it because he could not understand why I didn't want to create massive stone walls. I, in the end, wanted this stone surface to get so thin it was paper thin. Now, from an architect's point of view, “that's a veneer; that's cheap. This is a memorial. We should make this massive and big”.

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But think about the difference: if you put something with weight, then you've actually inserted an object. You've dropped a physical thing into the earth. All I wanted to do was cut the earth and polish the earth's edge. I didn't want weight. Now I didn't know that at the time. In a way, I couldn't explain it. But I just kept going, "Thinner. Thinner." Literally, if you go up on top, you'll see it was actually a very tricky detail because you wanted the grass to literally grow right up to the stone. So the top of the memorial is only two inches thick. . . . * * * In your notebook, write a response to each of the following questions. As part of your responses, quote from this document—that is, literally place “quotation” marks around something that is stated, as part of your answer to each question. After completing your written responses to the questions below, keep them in your notes portfolio, to use during our quiz and the final exam.

1. In her own words, what is Maya Lin’s work about? (See paragraph 1)

2. In what way(s) does Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial reflect the violence of war? (See paragraph 2)

3. Why did Maya Lin want to use thin rather than thick walls for the surface of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? (See paragraphs 4 and 5)

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